Obviously I know it’s super unlikely. But the Western Conference is wide open, and we are already the number two seed considering a ton of youth. Our new nemesis is daunting, and they will likely always have the better single All-Star in the matchup. There is literally zero chance of us having a player better than SGA over the next year season and a half. Frankly Williams or Chet may even qualify as better than anyone we end up with between 24/25 and 25/26. We are very good and the needle is pointing up. I do believe there will be a point in the next few seasons, where either one of our guys will become a superstar or a top player will want to come and push us over the top. That being said, I am very interested in really trying to make a go of it over the next season and a half. I think we can aim for the finals and keep the majority of our valuable picks and players. Our main vets FVV and Brooks have done wonders for our stability and likely will play at the same level for the remainder of their contracts. Even though FVV has struggled and is overpaid. The Rockets are almost certain to pick up that option in the off-season. so in an attempt to make the finals over the next two seasons, I would do the following…. Feb 2024 Landale+2 future 2nd rounders for Olynyk. Cam Whitmore+Jeff Green+Aaron Holiday for Cam Johnson. Olynyk is a true stretch Big and gives us a little bit of a better look than Jock. Adams clearly needs to play a good bit, but this gives us great optionality. Olynyk can play next to either. Trading Cam Whitmore would Make me sad, and I still am a believer. But being able to acquire Cam Johnson and his contract over the next couple years is valuable and gives us a consistent offensive presence and some length. It also helps Brooklyn to bottom out and maybe even helps us with the projection on that 2027 pick. My only concern here is if Johnson would be content to come off the bench. At this point, I am a firm believer that Amen should start, but I don’t think that will happen. And I reaaallly hope that Tori comes back, but I just have a little bit of a bad feeling about it. Alpi/Adams or Olynyk Smith Brooks/Amen Green/Cam Johnson FVV Thats a 9 man rotation. You could keep Holiday and deal Tate but I am really liking how Jae’sean is playing. I also am liking Green as initiator The more I see it, and this also leaves read as an option here and there. In the off-season, I am looking at trying to extend Adams for a year or two and possibly renegotiate the deal with VanFleet to keep him on a reduced salary. This allows us pretty much the same roster going into next season with all of our young players further along, and all of the powder still dry to make a big trade. What would you do to win this year?
None of these moves would impact our title odds this season or next, it would still be 0. The nets will trade Johnson for sure but not for basically nothing, you would have to offer a real trade package. The one good thing is you don't need to be the best team or deserve/earn a championship, you can win with enough injures. You can be in the 21 bucks or 22 warriors and with enough injury luck, win. You would need the rockets to get a jokic/shai/luka type player to have any meaningful title odds though.
I would be fine with the trades you mentioned, but I still think even with an upgraded roster like that, we're unlikely to make it to the finals this year or probably next year either. Playoff experience is super important, and only 2/5 of our starting group really has any. Also the team with the best player more often than not wins the series. This isn't always the case, but it's hard to win if your best player is totally outmatched by the opposing team's. Combination of those two factors = we're not true contenders yet IMO. We need to get bounced at least a couple of times and we either need to develop a true top 10 player or trade for one.
ppl just should be cautious about where we end up next year, just look at the Texans this year could be an outlier and we will end up like the Kings/Wolves if we don't constantly make the team better Sitting pat in the West is the easiest way to become mediocre.. We need to fix our needs in the off-season, PG and backup center and more shooting.
If you want to say that acquiring Cam Johnson will probably cost more than Cam Whitmore, that is probably true. Not to mention that Brooklyn already has a very offensive oriented Cam Thomas. That being said, Whitmore has a lot of value, and I don’t think it would take much more than Whitmore and a lottery protected first. And yes, I think that Cam Johnson would add a lot to our team for the next 2 1/2 years. Olynyk also. saying our title/final odds is zero isn’t accurate. They are very very low, but we could definitely make the finals if lucky. Even if we just were to win a playoff series or two this year, it could set the stage for next year. We can sit and wait for a top 10 player to develop or to be traded here but making a push over the next season and a half is still doable without surrendering any major assets.
With enough luck, there's probably around 20 teams that could make the finals. That terrible miami team made a finals a couple years ago because they had 2 of the luckiest series in nba history and insane injury luck. I think the goal always has to be to build a real, sustainable contender, and that won't happen unless someone develops into a top 10 player or one is acquired. Idk how much value Whitmore has. He's talented, but he's also a late first round pick with a horrible attitude so who knows, you could be right though that his value is pretty good.
If you wanted to go all in on the finals this year or next, the trade would be for Durant. When healthy he is the perfect fit for this team. I'm not advocating for it, because I think it would take too many assets, but if he only costs us Reed, Cam, FVV and 1 of Phoenix' pick (probably the 25 swap) then I would do it, or you could keep Cam and give them the 25 swap and 1 of our own future frp's. Any more than that and it's not worth the gamble. Amen, Jalen, Durant, Jabari, Sengun is a contending starting unit. Tari, Adams, Dillon, and Tate is a decent bench. Maybe could even bring in a Brogdon on the cheap for backcourt depth.
If we finish top 4 this season, we can make the WCF next season and Finals the year after. That's roughly the path. Will I be shocked if like the Celtics or Hakeem's Rockets or Curry's Warriors we catapulted to a Finals appearance early? I'd be impressed but not shocked. It happens sometimes. We're just now getting out of the nightmare of this board undervaluing its own players because Silas made them look worse than they were and people bought it. It's only now you're starting to see most prefer our prospects over other teams. It used to be that everyone else's prospects are better than ours and we're the only team that hasn't verified a star yet. Still more shock to come. Offensively this team has years of improvement left in it. Sengun, Amen and Green's jumpers specifically leave a lot of room for internal growth.
With a team core as young as ours, we should get better from year to year even if we stand pat. I'm for making only minor rotation trades unless something spectacular miraculously falls in our lap, like Harden did.
Its time to take a shot... push your chips in (draft capital) and try to upgrade a starting piece... obviously shooting for a superstar...
That's so minor though unless we take out our least respected shooter and bring in our most respected shooter. Other than that you'll run into a lot of redundancies and you'll have to make subsequent trades to improve fit and before you know it you've spent 2 years trying to make this work. Well, this is a roughly 50-win team without any upgrades. It looks like it improved by 19 wins and then looking like at least another 7-8 win improvement this season. If it were linear, we can expect another 5-win improvement next season to be in the 55-win range. That's title contender bro. Capable of winning a playoff series or two and all assets still in pocket. Everyone is under team control, we never have to fight the market much. In reality we can practically keep anyone for 8 years after they're drafted against their will as long as they are not willing to risk their career by refusing to extend their rookie contract. This is likely to continue to improve as our core players hit their mid 20's. This window likely stays open a minimum of 5 years confidently. It would sustain even if, for example, Reed falls flat and Cam asks out at a low trade value (2 prospects crash and burn). It's extremely solid. What are you going to offer us? You can't promise a 65+ win team obviously no matter who you get, that kind of team requires chemistry and playoff battles or multiple superstars (Durant/Curry, Lebron/Wade). So what you're offering is probably a 60-win team. This window's end will depend on your superstar's age and health. In order to acquire a player of the calibre you're talking about, we're essentially going to empty out the draft pick closet and just leave a couple of decent ones for future upgrades. Is that really worth the accelerating our window just 1 year? Do we really care about doing it 1 year sooner at the cost of a shorter title contention window? Cause we've learned now winning a title - you need to give yourself 5-6 shots at it. Look at the Celtics, Nuggets. They were able to take a lot of shots at the latter stages of the playoffs because they're in control of their contracts. What did Denver in? The guy they didn't draft - although a role player KCP - walking away tanks the team's status from championship-calibre to 2nd tier contender. I'm curious about your vision, you must be seeing some opportunities I don't.
i'm simply saying we are at the level where a veteran Battier is more beneficial than a rookie Rudy Gay... and what i mean by that is give me the proven commodity over more young 'potential' Weve got some good young players locked down for some time - we need to start adding championship pieces now. We've filtered through how many frps and finally have our core - time to double down! It's great to assume that all the upward trajectories will continue, and we will maximize those future draft picks to continue to supplement the roster and have a dynasty.... but in reality Dmo happens, Royce White happens, House is hotter than a 3 dollar pistol and falls off a cliff, injuries, egos, attitudes.... point being, if you're going for a championship - you need to load for bear! I agree, in our present construct, I believe we are looking at a team "capable of winning a playoff series or two and all assets still in pocket." Do you think continuing to supplement the roster with those 'in pocket' assets is going to propel us to a legit championship caliber team? Its a young fun team with a few solid vets - but we arent striking fear into other title contenders. I'm not looking to accelerate our window by 1 year... I want to improve our odds now, next year and the year after by acquiring "a player of the calibre you're talking about, we're essentially going to empty out the draft pick closet and just leave a couple of decent ones for future upgrades." Is having 2 2027 frps going to help us this year? next year? maybe a rookie contributes in 2027 - or maybe its royce white....
Amen has to step up a few levels on offense and Tari has to somehow stay healthy. Sengun becoming a reliable shooter would help out the entire offense as well.
I get what you're saying but addressed it fully I believe: our future is that bright assuming a less than ideal development trajectory. Even assuming 2 of our 6 fall flat, Green/Jabari/Tari only improve marginally each year and Sengun/Amen are our commodities who reach their potential. Frankly dude you have to admit that is more than realistic. We're not sitting with our initial 6 - the busts are already cut out. We're sitting on the remaining 6 after cutting 4 "busts" (Christopher, Garuba, Tyty, KPJ). I'm saying of these 6, still 2 more will bust. That should be fair (60% "bust" rate). Yes I do believe that if you have a top 10 offense and top 10 defense, all the narratives begin align to this reality and stat nerds start saying "who would've thought it's possible". Almost all champions fall into this category and as the Pistons proved, the "star" narrative is subservient to it. It's not actually about media-appointed stars, it's actually about the number of max-worthy players you have regardless of how the media is viewing that. Ben Wallace and Chauncey Billups delivered max-worthy production on the floor. Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince would be worth $30m per year on the open market today. No media darlings, just as many many max-worthy players. Other narratives that changed: Jokic was never going to be able to win a title because of his defense until he dominated the playoffs defensively out of nowhere. Giannis' shot was always going to be in the way of him joining the elite class, but it didn't and no one doubts him now. Everyone wanted to trade Jaylen Brown before his supermax because according to Celtics fans his handles are too weak and his jumper not consistent enough. That's the Finals MVP right now. Most people watch the NBA for the narrative so I don't blame them for not having interest in these details and going with the narrative but with the benefit of pulling up articles right before these championships, you can see clearly media narrative doesn't matter, the media is just as bad at predicting champions as us. We have to stick to what the product on the court is showing us. Great example I read the other day: It's claimed Banchero and some say Franz are arguably better than anyone on our roster. At least they have 2 of the 3 best players. Mosley is COTY. They have plenty of great role players in Suggs, KCP, Isaac, forgot their C's name. Even when they were healthy this season, they were not better than us though. Even with injuries, we stepped up much higher than them when Sengun went down than when Banchero went down. Jalen was more impressive as the 1A on an easy schedule than Franz in the exact same situation. Are we to seriously believe the narrative they have their stars and we're so behind? No, this is a media game. It's just hype. If we fall into this narrative, we will break up a slightly better situation in favor of nothing but an unproven theory. I believe we are capable of being a top 8 offense and a top 2 defense next season even if we only held our own picks at this point and nobody else's. In all of NBA history, that's a serious title contender. This is where stars are born. The VERIFIED stars we're trying to acquire from other teams were typically born in this context. I think we should attempt to get to that point before cashing in our chips. I believe it's too early and totally unfair on the team to judge especially our wings in an offense that - outside of the players' rebounding - is still as inefficient as Silas' offense. I want to know what they look like with better spacing and in a playoff series before making that choice. A playoff series will make some choices very easy for us. Some guys just shrink and others grow in that atmosphere. We will know right away which of our pieces we should trade and which we should continue investing in. At that point, you may not even have to trade all of our picks because you can probably throw in our 2 worst performing prospects to be equivalent to the value of a FRP or two. Let's say Cam flops, Green chokes in the playoffs badly and Booker is available. You can legit throw in Cam and Jalen to lessen the number of picks you're sending out or beat other teams in a bidding war. Anyways, I think this can work many other ways too. This is just how I see it unfolding because every time the universe forces us to change the offense to faster or more spacious, there's very good signs.
The thunder haven't achieved anything yet. It's true, they have the most talent and also still have a buttload of picks to improve their team going forward, but a lot can still go wrong. Injuries, chemistry, coaching, lack of playoff experience... and who knows, the Spurs could very easily accelerate their timeline, Wemby will attract a lot of stars. We can improve our team, but nothing will move the needle significantly - nothing but getting a real franchise player. And this could come both from the guys we already have on our roster or by getting one via trade or FA.Of course it is very unlikely that we get one of them. But that doesn't mean we are doomed. We are good enough to hang with every team and we can make a run. We won't be the favorites, but we can be like the Detroit Pistons in their last titles. Also unlikely, but we should be in that conversation, and for where we were a couple of seasons ago, that is actually not bad.
Rockets should cease the moment. The "window" is now open, not next year. Unfortunately, they don't have their 1A alpha dog (yet) so they need to figure that out pronto. Nobody predicted this so they need to adjust their plan accordingly. Like the Rockets traded key championship pieces for Clyde Drexler mid-season. Cease this opportunity cause there is no guarantee it'll happen next year.
People who say "window" is now open to find a 1A. I'm of the opinion our window hasn't started and that's because of this ranking right here: Look at the top five youngest teams adjusted for usage rate. We are the outlier while every other team is just doggy doodoo. The guys who are eating most of our offensive possessions are the second youngest in the league only behind the Wizards. All the other young elite rising teams like the Cavs or Thunder have a primary offensive option over age 25.
